Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

Will the Government provide time this week, either today or tomorrow, for the Minister for Transport to give a full statement to the House on the situation surrounding the 238 speeding convictions that were thrown out of court in Wicklow last week? We now face an horrendous situation. When the country moved to metric speed limits, as I understand it, it was necessary for a by-law to be established in each local authority area to allow those new metric speed limits to apply. However, the Department of Transport advised local authorities that there was no need to do this at the time.

There is now a lacuna in 29 of the 34 local authority areas. Many other persons will presumably seek in court to make null and void the speeding offences with which they have been charged. What is the position of the accident-prone Minister for Transport on this matter? Will he tell the House if the Government will appeal these cases to the High Court and the Supreme Court? Does the Minister take political responsibility for the advice he gave the various local authorities when the metric system was first introduced? What is the current position?

We have heard nothing from the Minister on this issue since last Friday, although it affects virtually every local authority area. We must get our act together on road safety and ensure the law is properly enforced. Once again the incompetence of the Minister for Transport and virtually every other office holder in the Government comes to the fore. When the former Taoiseach, Mr. Haughey, referred to this as the worst Government in the history of the State, how right he was.